May 2014 Moms

Does earlier bedtime really work?

DS *was* a good sleeper until about a month ago. Now we are up every hour or two. He goes down drowsy without a fight, so we can't fix that. However, at night he wakes up and always wants to nurse (he puts himself back down after he wakes sometimes but always wakes again within an hour). I understand that he's still hungry but doubt he needs to eat 5-7x each night. I'm sure it's just a comfort thing to get him through his wakings. Doing the Pantley gentle removal isn't working (he just wakes up more and tries harder to find my nipple), so I thought maybe we'd try going to bed earlier. He is stuck in between 3 and 4 naps. If he takes 4 he goes down about 2 hours after he last woke up, usually at 730. If it's 3 he stays up a bit longer and goes down at 7. Both suck right now. Anybody in a similar situation that started putting LO to bed earlier and actually had success? I'll try anything (except CIO) at this point...

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Re: Does earlier bedtime really work?

  • Sometimes DD wakes in the middle of the night and I just give her the paci and she goes back to sleep. Does he take a paci? Have you tried that?
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  • We have been struggling with sleep issues as well. Crap naps and still wakes 2-3x at night. He used to go to bed at 9. We moved it up to 8 and now 7:30 hoping for more success. He still wakes at the exact same times as he did before but is having a bigger first stretch. Can't say it really did anything extraordinary. We also try the paci if he just ate but usually only prolongs it by an hour or so. I'm tired :-/
  • Sometimes DD wakes in the middle of the night and I just give her the paci and she goes back to sleep. Does he take a paci? Have you tried that?

    Not a paci guy. TBH we didn't push it earlier since he really didn't need it for anything, but now I'm rethinking it. He doesn't seem to like them though.

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  • We do 3 naps sometimes 4 but the 4th is very short I'll wake him after 15-20 min so that he goes to bed sleepy. We start his routine between 6-630 and he's out for the night by 7 pm - sleeps through to anywhere between 530-630 eats and goes back to sleep for an hour or two. There's been a few 330 wakes up and DH goes in gives him his soother and he's out (I don't go bc I find he smells me and won't go back to sleep or takes longer to go back down: it's like hhmmmm I smell milk maybe I'll have a little nibble lol). When we put him down it's without a soother and drowsy but awake - we do this with naps as well :) good luck!

    Pregnancy Ticker
  • We moved her bedtime up and like pp said she still wakes about the same times but gets a longer stretch in the beginning which is good for her but not me so much! At least she's not as cranky in the morning!
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  • OMG, I would die for an 8 hour stretch! DS has never went more than 3 or 4 hours at night; and with the 4 month wakeful period, we are more like every 2 hours overnight. We have tried earlier bedtimes and later (now that I am back to work and want time with him) and it doesn't make a difference. Hoping he will outgrow this trend soon! GL to everyone!

     

  • We put LO down between 6:30-7 because he usually falls asleep on the bottle then. He's been sleeping 11-12 hours the past few nights. Before we were putting him down around 7:30 and he'd sleep around 7 or 8 hours. I'm not sure if it's the earlier bedtime or his age because he went through the 4 month sleep regression.
    Pregnancy Ticker
  • DS was sleeping 8+ hours a night before the 4MW.
    It might just be a phase that your son will grow out of.

    I actually found that a later nap and later bedtime had worked.
    We used to put him to bed around 8:00/8:30, but now we do a 7pm nap (30-60 minutes) and then play a bit, bath, PJs, nurse, read a book, and bed.  He's down by 10pm.  When we do that he'll sleep until 2am for a feeding and then back to sleep until we need to get up.

    Have you tried a warm bath?

    I wish I had time for a long routine, but I have a 2.5yo too! He has no trouble going down at night, though. Last night was a *tad* better:

    7:45pm - asleep

    10:30pm - woke up, patted back to sleep in crib

    12:30am - woke up and nursed

    3:00am - woke up, nursed

    4:00am - woke up, patted back to sleep in crib

    5:00am - woke up, nursed

    6:30am - woke up for the day

    I'm still very, very tired.

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